I believe most people know how Ron started his business by being active on
the Internet and then deciding to go into it... so I somewhat consider his
roots to be these mailing lists (type2 / vintagebus / vanagon).

Ron,

I think the lack of follow-up on e-mail has gone on long enough.  I know you
consider the situation serious, but I also don't think it is best for your
business or customers.  Get help, NOW!  Get two or three people if you have
to.  I have to assume that you have $ from all the business, what you don't
have is time...

I can understand why you tell people to only telephone you and not send
e-mail, but you are just hurting yourself.  Quick response to e-mail should
actually decrease ordering mistakes, as communications is in writing.

You are going in the right direction setting up an interactive WWW form
order, but I also think this will take time and have bugs ... plus there
will still people who want to use telephone and e-mail.

In the 3 or 4 orders I have placed, I always find "order@busdepot.com" to
get ignored and only get responses to list@busdepot.com -- this also makes
no sense, you should have all business split so that you can better support
your customers.  Do you honor sales when people call you at your house over
those who call you at your work?

Again, get help, even just to sort through the mail and organize "questions"
apart from "orders" that you get.  It is frustrating to me, and I'm sure
others, when we have detailed orders and just want to get them placed.  I
understand you get other customers with lots of questions and back/forth,
but you have to prioritize.  Too much pre-sales service takes too much time
and is hurting your customers with $ in hand ready to place their order.

My $.02.  I think Ron has done great on other areas, including flexible
billing, good merchandise, and good shipping.  Always have problems getting
my order in, and as he started with the list, I expect e-mail to be equal to
telephone.

  Stephen Gutknecht
  mailto:SGutknecht@i405.com  <-- main e-mail address
  http://www.i405.com/vw/seattle/  <-- Seattle VW info
  Renton, Washington